Perhaps I Should Start at the Beginning
by SarcasticBiscuit
Summary: [Novella] Rose Weasley, concert pianist, member of down-and-out cult band which makes no money, education dropout, seedy nightclub singer, has always done her best to forget. Her mess of a life, her unfortunate work career, and the boy that still makes her heart race. Rose has always done her best to forget, but fate has a way of taking us back to the beginning... (Mature Themes)
1. Chapter 1 - Expectation

**Hello there my darlings, this is just a quickie, a little snippet of a story that just marched into my head and refused to leave. It'll only be three chapters long, a mini ficlet if you will, as I have more than enough unfinished stories to be getting on with without starting anything fresh!**

 **Anyway, here we go, all honours to JKR**

 **(Warning for swearing and mentions of sex)**

 **Love and hugs**

 **A.A.A.**

* * *

 _They're funny things - beginnings._

 _Where do they actually begin? At the moment of our births? The moment of our conception?_

 _(Ew no, I am not thinking about that!)_

 _Perhaps my beginning was the moment the Sorting Hat placed me in Gryffindor._

 _I suppose you can call beginnings flexible, you make them what you want._

 _(And don't get me started about endings, we'll be here all night!)_

 _._

 _Perhaps I should start at the beginning..._

* * *

Day One: _**Wednesday 18th November, 2031**_

* * *

Chapter One

Expectation

"So, when are you going to tell your Mum?"

"Tell Mum what?" I stalled, trying not to look guilty as I straightened a wayward curl of hair.

"That you lost your job. That you've had your house repossessed. That you're working in a seedy nightclub. Take your pick, there's plenty to go around." Al looked annoyingly virtuous as he listed my many failings, ticking them off, one by one, on his fingers.

"I told you, I'm only staying on the sofa until I can find a new roommate, and anyway, can you imagine if I told Mum the truth? She'd explode, then come back to make me clean up the mess."

It was true, Mum would be furious if she found out how far I'd fallen from grace. Which was why she was never going to find out.

It was nine am on a particularly gloomy Wednesday morning somewhere in the middle of November, and I had just finished scrubbing down the work surfaces in Al's kitchen when he stumped in, hair looking more like a bird's nest than ever, and managed to traverse the distance from the doorway to the coffee pot without putting on his glasses. Which doesn't sound that impressive until you realise that he's as blind as a bat without them. No, really. He spent most of his childhood running into lampposts. He's the only person I know who crashed into the wrong barrier at King's Cross.

He downed the coffee in a startlingly small amount of time, and extracted his glasses from the cutlery drawer, sliding the bent frames onto his crooked nose.

Then the inquisition had started.

"The thing is," he said, running a hand through his mop of hair and getting his fingers stuck, "it's not that I don't love having you here, and your OCD really makes a difference to the grime levels-"

I cast my eyes around the kitchen which, thanks to the liberal doses of Mr Mulpepper's Multipurpose Acid Cleaner (works on blood, bone and steel) that I had been injecting since six o'clock that morning, was sparkling in a way that disguised the fact that only the night before you hadn't been able to get out the door thanks to all the pizza boxes and empty beer crates.

"-but Scorpius's portkey gets in soon and he's asked if he can stay here for the time being."

I froze.

"Malfoy's back?" I stuttered.

Al nodded awkwardly, poking at the coffee maker to hide his own embarrassment.

"Yeah, look Rosie, I know you guys left things pretty badly, but he was my best mate all through Hogwarts and he's got nowhere else to go."

I could almost feel the bottom of my stomach falling out through the soles of my feet. _Pretty badly_ had to be the understatement of the century.

"When's he back?" I asked, feigning indifferent as I picked up Al's coffee mug from where he'd dumped it on the draining board and began to run the hot tap.

"Friday."

Three days, I thought miserably. Three days to turn my entire life around.

The ironic thing was that a year ago, when we'd last seen each other, I'd had the perfect home, the perfect job, the perfect boyfriend, and I'd been bloody miserable. Now I was homeless, singing in a down-and-out club to make ends meet, and single as that one very lonely sock in the dryer.

Was I happy? I wasn't sure.

Three days. I could turn things around in three days.

...

Perhaps I should start at the beginning...

In true Weasley traditional fashion I was sorted into Gryffindor, a house with colours that clashed spectacularly with my then-carrot coloured hair. I coasted through my first six years, hanging mostly with the popular crowd because I could always get front row tickets to the league quidditch matches, and mostly ignoring my schoolwork which in any case was pretty easy.

Looking back, it was a wonder I didn't drive my poor parents insane. It wasn't that I disliked academia, or even quidditch for that matter. It was just that I liked my music more, kind of to the exclusion of everything else really. I ran the Hogwarts choir, sang in a band, and played three different instruments. I used to spend hours in the Muggle Studies rooms, stroking the ivories through jazz, blues, classical, muggle and wizarding music alike. Sometimes I even fell asleep there, head resting against the piano.

I had it all planned out. I would graduate Hogwarts and start a music career, perhaps as the front singer of an award winning wrock band, perhaps as a classical composer, perhaps as a jazz musician who would reinvent the genre. It was those dreams that got me through the classes that frankly bored me to tears.

And then, in my seventh year, he exploded into my life and everything turned upside-down.

Despite the new integration policies, I had had very little to do with Al's friend Scorpius, who mostly kept himself to himself. He was neither musical, or social, so I barely used to notice him. Add to the fact that, at least until that point, he had been freakishly small, awaiting the growth spurt that never seemed to arrive, and whenever we did happen to be in the same room I used to gaze over the top of his head.

But that summer he'd grown at least a foot and a half and I'd finally stopped growing, and it was as though he was everywhere.

It was that year that I realised that he wasn't quiet because he was socially inept, or because he was introverted in any way. No, it was because his uncle was a lord, and his family had gold in a vault dating back to the twelfth century, and because his eleventh birthday present had been his own personal lawyer.

Coming from a family like mine, one where money was always on the tight side and my bedroom was a converted airing cupboard, it seemed difficult to understand how we ended up in bed together. We simply ran in different spheres of life.

Those months were magic, no pun intended. But as with all things, it had to end. One furious argument too many and suddenly he receded back into his world of dinners with the Minister of Magic and diamond chandeliers lighting breakfast. I thought I was over it. I couldn't be with someone who thought champagne was budget anyway.

Fast forward two years and I was in bed with him again. I was working in the clerical job Mum had got me at the Ministry and I was bored to tears. That night, drunk as a skunk in springtime, I'd just found out that I'd been promoted to Chief Undersecretary to the Under Secretary of the Secretary of the Minister of Foreign Relations in the Department of Magical Cooperation and was drinking at a seedy club in London to try and console myself when I bumped into him, a leggy blond with another leggy blond on his arm.

We'd ended up drinking the best part of three bottles of tequila and drunkenly making out in the bathroom, before ending up back at my flat where we didn't even make it to the bedroom, sprawling out across the kitchen table.

What followed was, predictably, a completely fatalistic relationship that I never could really put a label on. He'd take a phone call when we were in bed together, I'd let him see me with another boy. He'd pull back at the slightest inclination that I might want more. Which I didn't. Well, not really.

Another night, another argument. Perhaps that was always going to be the way with us. I quit my increasingly soul destroying job at the ministry to sing in a band that had one hit album, then crashed back down into obscurity. He became a junior partner in his family's firm. The only contact we had in the next eighteen months was when I saw his marriage was announced in the Daily Prophet.

The day of the wedding, he turned up at my flat, looking for a place to stay and it struck me that, for all his connections and mountains of gold, the young Malfoy heir was lonely. We decided over a bottle of firewhiskey that we were going to give being roommates a go.

There were rules of course, no sex being at the very top of the list. We managed longer than I would have supposed but eventually we both caved and it was like seeing in technicolour again, like it had been in Hogwarts. He tugged me into his glistening world of elegant dinners and fancy cocktail restaurants. I picked up a taste for dry martinis and caviar, called everyone darling so I didn't have to remember names, and air kissed everyone so as not to smudge my two-hundred galleon-a-stick lipstick.

It was an odd life, insubstantial and dreamlike. And when we inevitably ended things about six months later, I felt like those months had been nothing more than a fairytale. I grounded myself by immersing myself in the newly emerging reawakening of the art deco movement, smoking thin French cigarettes, and ironing my hair into glossy ribbons. I wore lipstick like slashes of blood and dressed entirely in black and stiletto heels, emphasising my pale skin and sharp cheekbones with powder and rogue.

By the time I turned twenty-three I hadn't seen him in almost two whole years and I was seeing someone else when he turned up at a concert I was playing in. He didn't beg which in any case I wouldn't have wanted. But he kissed the inside of my wrist in a way that always made my toes curl and asked me to go to New York with him. I agree, and we left that night, leaving behind my perfect boyfriend and the second ministry job Mum had managed to get for me, sneaking out of the flat I had shared with my boyfriend, hand in hand and clutching our suitcases.

New York was incredible, a fantasy landscape of buildings that scraped the stars and wild parties. I loved the fast pace, the jazz scene, the intoxicating magic of the city that never sleeps.

What can I say? Another night, another argument and I stormed out in a furious rage. I paced the streets of New York for hours before my rage finally evaporated enough for my brain to kick in and the guilt to bubble up. When I got back to our apartment it was dark, the windows glaring. I found Scorpius on the sofa, an empty bottle in hand staring at the wall across from him with a blank kind of hopelessness. I joined him on the sofa and pulled a bottle of Vodka from the drinks cupboard, extracting out two tumblers.

That night, when we finally fell back on the pillows, panting in exhausted silence, he whispered something to me that the buzzing in my ears made it hard to hear. His lips brushed my neck, then he rolled over, his back to me.

I lay there for what felt like hours, listening to the sound of his breathing. Then I leant over and kissed his jaw line, just once before climbing out of bed and gathering my belongings.

I left New York that night and that was the last time I saw him.

I found a job as a nightclub singer in a little place in the centre of London and moved in with a friend until she got married a few months ago. Then I moved in with Al.

...

Three days. I could get my life together in three days.

How hard could it be?

* * *

 **Reviews make my day!**

 **Love and hugs**

 **A.A.A.**


	2. Chapter 2 - Extraction

**Hello there Sweeties, how's it going?**

 **(Pauses for you to say something)**

 **I see. Well, as this conversation is getting a little strained (not to mention one-sided) I shall get on with the business.**

 **Here we shall be introduced to a certain Mister Malfoy, so warnings: Language, Alcohol consumption, and mentions and modest descriptions of sex.**

 **Drop me a review and let me know what you think!**

 **Love and hugs**

 **A.A.A.**

 **.**

 _Endings are a bitch._

 _I know endings are supposed to be good, the ride off into the bloody sunset._

 _Get the girl, get the money, get the happy ending._

 _It's all so bloody annoying._

 _And the really annoying thing is that I would do almost anything to have one._

 _(A Happy Ending that is)_

 _But that is simply impractical._

 _A philosopher would argue that if birth is the beginning, then death is the ending. Everything else is simply white noise in between._

 _What a bloody depressing thought._

 _(Almost as depressing as the mess I've gotten my life into.)_

 _._

 _Perhaps I should start at the beginning..._

 _._

 _Day Two:_ _ **Thursday 19th November, 2031**_

 _ **.**_

Chapter Two

Extraction

 _Dear Scorpius_ , the letter started,

 _You couldn't do me a massive favour could you?_

 _Only my roommate's just marched out and I'm struggling to keep up with my rent. Any chance you might want to live in little old England again?_

 _To be honest mate, I'm in a bit of a pickle and could do with some extra help paying my rent, especially now my university loans have come through. Student finance is a bitch._

 _Your pal,_

 _Albus_

 _._

So there I was, sat in the long queue for the cross-continental portkey I had bought a ticket for, travelling from New York to London with a stop-over in Nairobi. This time tomorrow I would be back in England.

Unfortunately that meant being in the same country as _her._

I mean, Albus was always her favourite cousin, so there was no way she wouldn't be around. I wondered briefly if the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was anticipation of the upcoming spiralling vortex attached to a muddy football boot that was going to hurl me into another continent, or residual anger from our last meeting, the night I had told her I loved her, the night she walked out on me.

I could pretend it was the former option.

I sat on my suitcase, pondering matters of life, the universe and everything as the queue snaked away up to the desk where a mix of tourists, commercial travellers and ministry officials stood in their assorted lines, clutching their tickets. Every now and again a harassed looking witch or wizard in uniform robes would hurry past, clutching the smoking remains of a ticket whose owner had obviously missed their portkey, or attempted to jump ship and tried to use the wrong portkey.

I watched the shuffling queues for a while, my mind not really registering them, then stretched out my legs, adjusting my seat on my suitcase and settled in to wait.

...

Perhaps I should start at the beginning...

I was sorted into Slytherin after five minutes of deliberation, not, as many rumours suspected, because I was a hat stall between Gryffindor and Slytherin (Gryffindor- _oh the horror_ ) but because I was busy arguing with the Sorting Hat over the merits and pitfalls of sorting impressionable eleven year olds into rigidly regimented demographics. It was a debate I had previously had with my personal lawyer the day after I turned eleven.

I was always destined for Slytherin. I understand my failings well, I was neither brave or excessively intellectual. Nor was I particularly interested in the plights of others, though that may have been due more to my traditional upbringing, rather than a natural inclination for disinterested apathy.

In short, I had been raised to keep myself to myself, and so I did. My friendship with Albus surprised both of us and we were both equally responsible, or to blame perhaps, for its derivation. He was naturally unsure and quiet, especially when it came to social interactions and had clearly spent very little time with companions outside his own family. Being sorted into Slytherin was a shock to him, something he dealt with by withdrawing into himself. I, too, as the smallest person in our year, and at that point, the entire school, felt all the indignities and humiliations of uncertainty and lack of confidence. I had no idea how to talk to people my own age and this factor was not helped by the fact that when I did speak, I spoke with a vocabulary that alienated the less informed. They thought me snobbish and perhaps I was for I had little patience for their silly games.

By the time I had turned seventeen however, I had grown into myself, for a seventeen year old with the ways of an adult is far less remarkable than that of a child. I began to find that certain members of my year, and to some extent, the years below us, began to gravitate towards Albus and myself.

Finally I had the growth spurt I had been waiting for, finally I felt I was truly at home within myself.

And throughout all these changes I noticed Rose Weasley.

Due to our natural connection of Albus, I both knew and knew of her, but with the separation of our houses I never really spoke to her. She was natural very tall, and at eleven she should have felt that, cultivating a slouch to hide her height as many self-conscious do. But Rose didn't. She never felt the need to be anything she didn't want to be.

By the end of our first year she was running with a completely different crowd to Albus and myself, and her natural confidence made her one of the most popular girls in the school. Compared to my uncertainty and archaic ways, she seemed poles apart from me.

I envied the boys she went out with, the people who got to be her friend. I knew many of our peers thought me standoffish and conceited, but I truly believed that she didn't even notice my silent and idiotic adoration. I almost hated her for that.

Then one day, in early September during our final year of Hogwarts, I walked into the Muggle Studies room to get away from Peeves and found her playing the piano.

And that was it. My silent, pitiful adoration was gone and in its place all I could see was her white, angular face and the waves of auburn hair, those dark eyes fringed with long lashes. Adoration was dead and I fell in love.

How I got her to go out with me I am still to this very day not sure. I was inexperienced and unsure when it came to girls and so I bewitched her with the life I led outside of Hogwarts, the fairytale castle I lived in, the balls and parties.

And when I got to kiss her, to lick the salty tang of her skin and feel her vibrancy, her destructive vitality, shaking beneath me. The way she would say my name, again and again as though it was the only thing she could gasp out, my name, the only thing she could think off.

I used to pull her hair back from her face and let the strands slide between my fingers, a gentle movement so contrary to her own grip, the way she would slide her hands into my hair and cling to me as our mouths fought, her nails scraping my skin.

Rose Weasley was always delightfully straightforward. She cared about me, I knew that from the very beginning of our strange, frighteningly wondrous relationship. But she cared about her music more. Perhaps we were always destined to fall apart.

I remember that night, how hatred had pulsed through me, hatred and love, the two emotions I now associate with her. It was petty jealousy, I now realise. Not just for her music, but for her vitality, for she was a great fire, and I nothing more than the wood she burnt. Perhaps all geniuses are like that, and she was a genius, there was no denying that.

Our fights grew more frequent, and then suddenly they were gone. We'd burned too hot, too fast to last. And sickeningly, the moment she was gone I realised I would have done almost anything to make her stay.

Upon leaving Hogwarts I went into the family business, not knowing what else to do with myself. I dated the girls my mother pushed forwards in the hopes that I would settle down like she craved.

How I found myself with Clarice in that seedy night club two years later I was not sure. It was as though the moment I saw that red hair, cut short now, a pixie bob that was so unlike the wild curls I had known last time I saw her.

 _'For old times' sake.'_ She had said as she opened the bottle of tequila. The bathroom was small and cramped, with water from the leaking basin splattered across the floor. I propped her against the stall door, the lock digging into her back as I tore at her clothes and her mouth found my earlobe, biting and suckling, then grinning as she made me moan.

But for the insistent banging on the bathroom door and the incensed voices of the angry people waiying beyond it, I would have been with Rose in that dirty cubicle, need and alcohol making me insensible. We ended up at her flat, where we didn't make it to the bedroom, instead locking together as I hoisted her up against the kitchen table. The feel of her long fingered hands, the biting motion of her fingernails was so familiar and so terrifying all at once, and I felt like I was that scared boy again, terrified that my own failings would lose me the thing I loved best.

Perhaps that was why we started that fatalistic relationship. I wanted her so badly, that I was willing to do almost anything just to be near her. My obsession with her stopped me thinking, stopped me sleeping. I think the intensity of my passion frightened her and she pulled back. More to save myself than anything, I did the same. Whether she felt for me what I did for her, I could not guess. And with that uncertainty I sought to protect myself, pushing her away.

Still there were times, late at night if I could get her to stay, when I would slide my hands through her choppy hair and memorise its silky texture and miss my innocence adoration, before it had become so poisonous.

Rose was always so delightfully straight forward. She loved her music, she loved me. In that order. The morning I finally managed to persuade her to quit her soul-destroying job she ran off to join a band that to my knowledge became a cult classic, but made no money at all. Perhaps I should have gone after her but I think we both realised that what we had was unhealthy.

One year later I asked Clarice to marry me fulfilling neither of our wishes, but satisfying both our parents. The morning of our wedding I found her crying on the floor of our bathroom. She gave back the ring and kissed me, and I held her hand as we told our parents the wedding was off.

Then I went looking for Rose, desperate for anyone who I knew would not judge me. For a while, just being her friend was enough.

Until it wasn't.

When she inevitably left, I could barely recognise her anymore.

She had let her hair grown long again, and it was ironed flat with heavy bangs cut square across her forehead. It suited her angular pointed face, the heavily made up eyes, and the arching cheek bones that were slashes across her face. She was no longer beautiful, but looked like she was an artist's dream, made of charcoal etchings, tall with an undulating figure that made me hard with desire. She smoked thin French cigarettes that made me feel sick and enveloped her form in a fine silver mist, as though you were looking at her through a mirage. She was hardly substantial, hardly real.

I watched her play, like I'd done all those years ago when I'd first fallen in love with her, and my bitterness, our many furious arguments drifted away. I was a boy again, looking at a girl, begging her to love me. And I kissed the inside of her wrist in the way that always made colour rush to her cheeks, and we ran away together.

New York was a dazzling intoxicating mess of wild parties and inverted nights. We never saw the sun in those days, instead only seeing the moonlight reflected upon the silver scrapers that brushed the clouds that hid the stars with dirty pollution.

Another night, another fight, and another empty bottle. I sat in the dark and contemplated the intoxicating presence of my Rose in my life, her devastating emptiness when she walked out, hatred dripping from her eyes.

When she finally returned I knew that I had to make a change, and when we finally fell back against the pillows, in that moment when she would usually pull away, I leant over and traced the line of her collarbone before lowering my lips to her throat and letting them brush her pulse. I whispered the words we had never said to the point in her neck when her blood thrummed, then, suddenly scared that I had pushed far, demanded too much, I rolled over, too scared to look at her, to reach out and hold her like I wanted to.

The next morning the bed was empty and I felt cold.

It seemed that she, too, had been thinking about making a change in our self-destructive pattern. But her conclusion had been to run.

I knew she must have returned to London, so I stayed in New York and threw myself into the business until I could pretend I had forgotten her.

But she stayed with me in my dreams.

...

Above the heads of the waiting passengers a ribbon exploded into the air. _Nairobi Passage_ it read, _Terminal Three._ Standing up and shaking out my stiff legs, I picked up my suitcase, straightened my robes and began to push my way through the crowds.

Three days. I could get my life together in three days.

How hard could it be?

 **How hard indeed? So there we have young Master Scorpius's side of things - Do you agree with him? Thoughts on this chapter, or what you think is going to happen in the next, drop me a review**

 **Love and hugs**

 **A.A.A.**


	3. Chapter 3 - Entertainment

**Warnings for adult themes**

* * *

 _Middles are frankly depressing._

 _I mean, ends are supposed to be happy and at least with beginnings something new is starting. But middles are just filler._

 _I mean, sure, there's bound to be some useful details but what wouldn't I give to have it all again, to start at the beginning..._

* * *

Day Three: _**Friday 20th November, 2031**_

* * *

Chapter Three

Entertainment

The sickeningly sweet stench of the smoke clings to the sweat-soaked skin of the dancers as they writhe beneath the pulsating lights, momentarily piercing the darkness, a hypnotic strobe of brightness revealing the melting makeup and stains of dampness against dark fabric, then hiding these imperfections away in the alcohol-infused, spectacular now.

I slip around the edge of the dance floor, trying to avoid the puddles of spilt firewhiskey, and head for the door behind the bar, tipping a nod to one of the bartenders who is mixing cocktails with explosive results. Behind the door is a storeroom, and then through the next door and I find myself on the stairwell with stairs ascending and descending before me.

The Underground Recreational Club is situated just off Knocturn Alley and attracts a varied and interesting crowd because of its own versatility. Built across five floors, from basement to penthouse, the club is officially a night club. That is to say, the owner pays tax in that respect, and just happens to omit the rest of the attractions on his tax return. The ground and first floors are dedicated to this end, to the pulsating heartbeat of music and the intoxicating presence of liquor. The basement I never enter, but the strange blue smoke that sometimes leaked up the stairs from the dark corridors is enough to label what goes on down there.

The third floor, as I hurry past it, houses the strippers and dancing girls. I try to keep my head down as I pass their landing, but falter when I see Kerry, one of the youngest girls, sitting on the stairs in floods of tears. I pause for a second and check my watch, but I have time before my shift starts and sit down.

The fourth floor is officially the gentleman's club, but in reality are the gambling rooms where wizards and werewolves and vampires can buy and sell shares and galleons for the role of a die or the turn of a card. This is the floor I frequent, and I sing there amid the clouds of smoke from cigars and pipes, my backdrop the gentle _click-click_ of the roulette wheels. I duck into my changing room and shrug into my black velvet dress, applying thick makeup to my face and scraping back my hair into a tight knot on the back of my head. A liberal sluice of potion holds it flat and I pull on my wig, the long black locks artfully tousled as though I have just been satisfyingly fucked. In a world where I am recognisable for my ruefully red uncontrollable curls, I look nothing like myself.

A small blessing.

I open one of the drawers in my dressing table and remove a box of cigarettes from it. I slip one out and tap it on the table then put it to my lips sucking in, despite the fact that I haven't lit it.

I buy them from a tiny place, just down the street from the Underground Recreational Club. It's owned by a hag who specialises in more _herbal_ amusements, but the cigarettes there come tax free and in large boxes so I willingly part with my hard-earned gold there. I've bumped into Kerry there a few times, buying oblivion for a few hours, but I've never been tempted, even in my wildest days.

Removing my wand from the flesh-coloured holster on my thigh I light the cigarette and breathe in the smoke, letting it fill my lungs. In my art-deco days, when everything was _A Production_ , I smoked French cigarettes, not particularly because I liked the taste, but because the simple motion, the rise then fall of my hand as I took a drag, was comforting.

Scorpius hated that I smoked. Not that he ever said anything, but I could tell. And I never told him that the reason I stopped smoking when we went to New York was because of him. Perhaps, with him, I didn't need that reassurance anymore.

When I ran away from New York it was raining in London. It was late, so late that I should have been asleep in bed, and most of Diagon Alley was closed. I was felt so awake though, still running on American time and heartbreak, so I went to Knocturn Alley, looking for comfort. I found the hag's shop and bought my first cigarette in months. Sitting on the cobbles under the overhang of the tall rickety buildings, I lit up, and took a drag. The smoke kept me warm as the rain attacked the grime of the street, blurring the colours into darkness.

I smoked the whole packet in that hour I sat on the cobblestones that night. And when I was finished I walked into the club opposite and asked if they needed a singer. The smoke made my usually clear voice deep and raspy, but the manager seemed to like that. Even after I'd admitted it was the cigarettes that made me sound this way, he didn't seem to mind, and even had it written into my contract that I would smoke before each set. I didn't care. It was only just beginning to sink in how big the world was, and how much distance existed between London and New York, how many miles, too many to really contemplate.

The smoke makes me husky as I step out from behind the heavy red curtains, and I croon as I walk between the tables, absently brushing my fingers across the shoulders of one or two of the regular big-spenders, blowing a kiss to an American who is losing heavily and cheerfully at the Baccarat tables.

When I first started singing here I used to avoid the faces in the crowds, feeling ashamed that I somehow ended up in this place, in this poisonous cavern of greed and debauchery. I used to sing through half closed eyes, crooning the notes the soft piano keys echoed. But now I stare out defiantly, daring these men and women to feel anything but desire for me. My submission has become power and passion, and oddly enough I am now one of the most favoured singers at The Underground, a favourite with the patrons and my manager alike.

My mind keeps turning back to Kerry as I make my way through my set, crooning the words I know so well. When I produce another cigarette, half a dozen lighters and wands appear to light it for me from middle-aged balding men, and I absentmindedly hold it out, letting them fight over my attention. I wonder if it was one of these men who got Kerry pregnant.

Kerry is officially seventeen, but I wonder if she's younger than that because she seems so small. She should still be in school, but I don't think she reads all that well because she always gets me to help her with her pay check, probably I'm the only one in this godforsaken place that wouldn't try and rip her off. She's a sweet girl, one that won't survive in this world.

It's almost eleven when I see him in the doorway and I falter in my song for a heartbeat before remembering my disguise and knowing - _hoping_ \- he won't recognise me. I turn back to the piano and signal to Michael that I want to take my break. He nods and I begin to edge towards the curtains behind the stage. I draw one back and slip through amidst the general encouragement for _just one more song_ from the patrons. I peer back just one more time and my heart sinks as I see him watching me. I can tell he's seen me, I can tell he recognises me.

Back in the dressing room I take a much needed breath and instantly feel sick, though from the smoke, or from the shame I cannot tell. I want nothing more than to go back to Al's and curl up under my duvet and sleep for a hundred years, until I can forget this mess that my life has become.

Wanting some fresh air, I head for the stairway, meaning to head up to the roof, but voices stop me.

"Kerry baby, you need to pull yourself together, you're being hysterical. You'll just get rid of it and you can keep your job and everything will be peaches and cream."

The voice is horrible familiar, and sure enough, as I take a few more steps and look down I see my manager stood in front of Kerry, arms folded.

Kerry snivels something I can't hear, and I hear Roger sigh. "Kerry baby, no-one wants a fat stripper, so we'll get rid of it, it's really not a big deal."

"Don't call the baby 'it'." And I'm suddenly proud that Kerry is standing up to Roger. "They're going to be your child and you want to get rid of them, how could you?"

I can tell Roger is beginning to get impatient as I creep forwards, trying to keep my footsteps quiet on the metal stairs.

"Rachel wasn't this much trouble when this happened. Stop being such a fucking child."

"I won't, my baby- I can't-" Kerry's sobbing again, her words fragmented as she tries to calm her breathing.

There's a crack, a sharp, pained gasp, and I feel my heart stop, and then I'm running, jumping down the stairs until I'm there, between Roger and Kerry, one hand out to shove him away from her.

"Don't you _dare_ touch her!" I hiss from between clenched teeth. He looks shocked to see me.

"Vivian baby," He starts, but I cut him off.

"No, you do not call me that, you have no right to call anyone that. You are leaving." I turn away from him and help Kerry to her feet. Her eye is bleeding where one of his rings tore the skin.

"Don't you talk to me like that bitch!" And suddenly the back of my head explodes in pain and I fall forwards, my face smashing into the metals stairs.

I hear Kerry's scream as though from the end of a very long tunnel, but the ringing in my ears makes it seem fuzzy, as though the static on the wireless is causing interference with my hearing. I hear a bellowed _'STUPEFY!'_ and I can taste rust in my mouth. It takes me a minute to realise that the bastard has knocked out one of my teeth.

Gentle hands help me up and Kerry cradles my head, wiping away the blood from my mouth with her shirt sleeve. She slips the black wig, now askew, from my head and undoes my tight bun, letting my red hair lose. Some of the tightness in my head lessens.

The pounding of footsteps makes me look up and I see Scorpius running down the stairs, his wand drawn. And then, I don't know how, he's there and I fall into his arms, my fingers knotting into his shirt, breathing in his smell, the feel of his skin, the sudden unexplainable comfort I feel in his presence. And I don't know how, I don't let myself try to figure it out, but I suddenly am realising what I lost when I ran away from him, all those times. And I realise too, why we kept ending up back together, all those times. Because in those desperate minutes, when there was no-one else, and when we needed someone so desperately that it almost tore us apart, we were the only ones there, we were the only ones who cared.

* * *

It turns out that Al was trying a little match-making of his own. At least, when Scorpius mentioned his letter and I mentioned my own conversation with him, that's what he was obviously trying to do. Perhaps we should have been mad at him, but honestly, as we are both currently homeless and unemployed, we kind of had to be nice to him.

That night, when Scorpius and I brought Kerry home with us, Al was waiting up, expectantly hoping some grand reunion. What he got was somewhat different: Kerry, the side of her face bruised and swelling, a black and bloody eye. She walked through the door and was promptly sick all over the floor. Me, still in my long black dress, my smeared dramatic makeup, my packet of cigarettes and my missing tooth.

Our misadventure explained and - _oh,_ I'd forgotten how wonderful my cousin could be - Al pushed me towards the shower, put Kerry to bed, fixed Scorpius a large whiskey and re-grew my tooth, all in the space of about twenty minutes. Then he asked what we were going to do about Kerry.

Girls with an extended network of loving friends and family members didn't end up working at The Underground, I explained. The girls who worked there were mostly runaways or those who had been abandoned, or simply didn't have anyone who cared about them enough to worry. I thought it was mostly likely, of the three, that Kerry was a runaway and Al promised to use his Auror connections to put out some feelers. Until then, I decided, she was going to live with me, as soon as I could find a place of my own.

Soon after, Al put the kettle on to make hot chocolate and was in the doorway, about to take some to Kerry, when I caught up with him.

"Did you tell Scorpius where I was?"

"Yes I did." He said very seriously. "Rose, you've known for ages that I hated where you worked. And this has nothing to do with the fact that you're not capable of looking after yourself-" He cut off my protestations. "My whole life your music has been the most important thing to you, more than friends, more than Scorpius, even more than me. And I'm not blaming you for that, Merlin knows you are a genius when it comes to music. But that place, it was destroying you. And I couldn't bear to stand by and watch the thing you loved most tear you apart."

I reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. "I love you baby cousin. But you're wrong. I never loved anything more than you. I'm so sorry if it seemed that way."

"Watch who you're calling baby!" He joked, mock serious. "There's only seven minutes between us you know."

"That still makes you my baby cousin," I smiled, squeezing his hand one more time. "Now go on before those mugs get cold."

The kitchen seemed very quiet without Al there when I re-entered. I tried not to look at Scorpius as I pulled out a stool at the breakfast bar and sat down, absently turning my mug in a circle. Scorpius didn't break the silence, and for that, almost more than anything this night, I was grateful.

"I was always very selfish, wasn't I?" I said presently, after almost five minutes of silence, but for the awkward ticking of the clock. I still couldn't look at him, instead taking a sip from my mug.

I heard him shift, then clear his throat.

"Truthfully, yes you were." His words were not accusatory, more matter-of-fact, but they still made a lump rise up in my throat. Perhaps self-denial is the easiest transgression of all.

"But that never mattered to me," He continued before I could respond. "I loved that about you, how you were so driven, how passionate you were about your music, how it made your eyes dance. I loved watching you play, you radiated this other-worldly joy. I was jealous."

I looked up sharply and met his eyes when he uttered this last. He'd lost weight since I'd seen him in New York, there was a sort of hollowness to his cheeks, and a darkness beneath his eyes, the hint of stubble on his jaw. He looked as tired as I felt, the weight of the world is a heavy burden to bear, even if it's only the weight of your world.

"You had this incredibly relationship, something I couldn't even begin to comprehend, and it wasn't with me. Rose, I loved you from the very first day I met you, back when we were both just children and didn't even understand what that meant. And I know you never felt as strongly for me. You had your music, I had you, both of us with our obsessions. I'm not sure how healthy either of them are. And when I finally told you, on that night in New York, you ran away and you broke my heart again. And the most foolish thing of all is I still end up running back to you. Al only had to write and I quit my job and sold my apartment and I came back to London with no plans other than seeing you."

There was no anger in his eyes, only regret and resignation and somehow that made it hurt even more.

"I never knew what you said." And I was ashamed to hear my voice break.

"What?"

"That night," I swallowed. "I was so drunk and so unhappy. I never know what you said. And I thought you'd be better off without me. I was poisoning you, this toxic mess of a repetition we had going. Every time I messed up, every time I broke my heart just a little more."

I fell silent, and so did he. What, really, was there left to say?

"Al's not going to be pleased," I murmured a few moments later. "Three unemployed houseguests."

He seemed bemused by the change in subject.

"Well, I was hoping that your mum might be able to get me a job at the Ministry, one of those horrible clerical jobs that you despised so much. Maybe in the Department of Magical Law. Merlin knows I know enough about Corporate Law to take on even the largest of companies."

"So why did you really leave Malfoy Enterprises?" I asked.

"I found out exactly what they're invested in." He answered, after a moment's pause. "The British side of the Malfoy family may try and stay away from the gory details but the American side is less equipped to deal with nosey offspring." He smiled ruefully. "We've had fingers in a lot of pies, for a lot of years. Some are quite reputable, mergers and acquisitions, that kind of thing. Some, less so. The trafficking of endangered magical creatures for illegal potioners and practitioners for one. But Malfoy Enterprises also owns the largest chain of underground strip clubs in New York. When I found out I wrote to my father and told him I was going to Magical Law Enforcement if he didn't shut them down. But there seems there is nothing to be done. The shares were sold a long time ago."

He abruptly changed the subject.

"Vivian. In the club that man called you Vivian. I understand that you didn't want to use your real name, but why Vivian? I never knew you had a particular liking for that name."

"I don't." I answered. "I hate the name. But it seemed appropriate. Vivian Darkbloom. A name I hated for a person I hated. I'm surprised none of the patrons ever picked up on it. You'd think someone in that club might have read some muggle literature, especially a book like Lolita in that place. Lolita was practically written to point the finger at those disgusting old men."

Silence again, and it feels as though, suddenly, all those miles between London and New York, all that distance, has been compressed into the space across the table, between the two of us. It seems so far and so near all at once that I can't even comprehend how to possible reach out to him.

I want to, Merlin help me, I want to. But I wonder, with all that has gone before us, we're at the end. The end of us. And the sheer, gargantuan terror that fear inspires makes the distance between us seem, not manageable, but traversable.

We have so much history, so much past. The beginning and middle and end, told so many times over, and I realise now, that however poisonous and toxic and agonising the endings are, the lying, the deceit, the running, we always started again, hoping, praying, wishing, that this time might be different. And it doesn't matter how many times we end, because we're always dragged back, ready to start over, to start again.

So I reach out, out - across those thousand miles, those inches across the table, and I reach out, out - across my fear and uncertainty, and I take his hand.

I don't know if we'll always end the same way.

But, in this moment, in this heartbeat, in this forever...

I'm ready to start at the beginning.

* * *

 **My dear readers, there we have it. Perhaps not the ending many of you were hoping for, but an ending non-the-less, and an ending that I feel is right. It's not in either of their characters to accept the happy ending without some strings attached.**

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